City council is expected to defer Monday night a new application from the Ambassador Bridge to demolish 75 buildings it owns in Sandwich while the mayor and bridge company negotiate what to do with the land.

The talks are the latest step in the long saga of legal wrangling between the bridge company and the city over the hundreds of boarded up eyesores on Indian Road and other nearby streets west of the bridge. Many are hopeful the stalemate may be finally coming to an end. Bridge company president Dan Stamper reached out to Windsor mayor Eddie Francis in November, hoping to come to an agreement after the company dropped its appeal of a court decision upholding Windsor’s right to ban the demolition of boarded-up houses on the city’s west side.

According to the application, the bridge company wants an exemption from a bylaw prohibiting the demolition of properties in Sandwich so it can tear down 75 buildings, which are all or nearly all vacant. The Ambassador Bridge has a longstanding ambition – opposed by the city and Ontario and federal governments intent on building a new bridge in the Brighton Beach area – to build a second span just west of the current one and the properties on the application stand in the shadow of where the additional span would go.

However, Bridge Company president Dan Stamper said the application to demolish the properties is unrelated to plans to eventually twin the span. He said it’s in no one’s interest to have the buildings sit there vacant and deteriorating, so he wants to tear them down and grass the lots over.

“We’d like to remove the homes, clean the area up and grass the lots so everybody feels better about the community,” he said. “The community would like the homes down, I believe the majority of the councillors would like the homes down and we’d like them down.”

Francis said that may well be the case, but the focus of the talks will be on making sure the bridge company will follow through on what it says it’s going to do.

“I will not allow this city to be used, nor will I allow this community to continue to be abused, for the sake of a public relations campaign they would like to undertake,” he said. “We’ve been burned one too many times. But I’m prepared to go through this again if it means we’re going to find a solution for residents in that area.”

Unless council grants an exemption, the bridge company is banned from demolishing the buildings because they’re in a designated heritage area. The company took the city to court, claiming the city enacted the 2007 heritage bylaw to prevent it from twinning the span, which the city opposes because it would cut off the neighbourhood and bring even more truck traffic.

A Superior Court justice sided with the city in September of 2011. The Bridge Company filed an appeal, then dropped it in August.

Francis said the city will keep the fact the bridge company needs to demolish the properties to move ahead with the second span in mind during negotiations. However, keeping the vacant buildings in place is not good for the neighbourhood, he said.

“I’m very mindful of the fact the Ambassador Bridge’s ultimate plan is to twin the Ambassador Bridge. That fact is not lost on us. But as the Ambassador Bridge knows, our No. 1 priority is to protect the residents of that area,” he said.

The city administration report regarding the bridge company’s new application to demolish the properties recommends that council deny the request. “The loss of this viable housing stock will have a destabilizing effect on the overall Sandwich neighbourhood,” reads the report signed by senior planner Kevin Alexander, city planner Thom Hunt, city solicitor George Wilkki and chief building official Lee Anne Doyle.

Sandwich community activist Mary-Ann Cuderman said she shares that fear. “I would hate to see all of them demolished, because some of them have very good bones and could be rehabilitated. We’ve already lost a grade school, now we’re about to lose a high school,” she said of the public school board plan to close Forster high school.

She said if the bridge company does demolish the properties, she hopes the city gets a written guarantee that it will follow through with plans to grass the lots – and not turn around and do something else with the land soon after.

“For how many years is he going to guarantee it’s going to be parkland? That would be my next question to him,” she said. “That’s the way they work – they get their foot in the door and they just keep pushing and pushing until they’re in all the way.”

A boarded up house on the 600 block of Indian Road in West Windsor is pictured Sunday, Dec. 16, 2012. City council is expected Monday to defer a new application from the Ambassador Bridge to demolish properties it owns in Sandwich(DAX MELMER/The Windsor Star)

A boarded up house on the 600 block of Indian Road in West Windsor is pictured Sunday, Dec. 16, 2012. City council is expected Monday to defer a new application from the Ambassador Bridge to demolish properties it owns in Sandwich(DAX MELMER/The Windsor Star)

A boarded up house on the 600 block of Indian Road in West Windsor is pictured Sunday, Dec. 16, 2012. City council is expected Monday to defer a new application from the Ambassador Bridge to demolish properties it owns in Sandwich(DAX MELMER/The Windsor Star)

A boarded up house on the 600 block of Indian Road in West Windsor is pictured Sunday, Dec. 16, 2012. City council is expected Monday to defer a new application from the Ambassador Bridge to demolish properties it owns in Sandwich(DAX MELMER/The Windsor Star)

A boarded up house on the 600 block of Indian Road in West Windsor is pictured Sunday, Dec. 16, 2012. City council is expected Monday to defer a new application from the Ambassador Bridge to demolish properties it owns in Sandwich(DAX MELMER/The Windsor Star)

A boarded up house on the 600 block of Indian Road in West Windsor is pictured Sunday, Dec. 16, 2012. City council is expected Monday to defer a new application from the Ambassador Bridge to demolish properties it owns in Sandwich(DAX MELMER/The Windsor Star)

A boarded up house on the 600 block of Indian Road in West Windsor is pictured Sunday, Dec. 16, 2012. City council is expected Monday to defer a new application from the Ambassador Bridge to demolish properties it owns in Sandwich(DAX MELMER/The Windsor Star)

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